


Living

by NotManTheLessButNatureMore



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 13:31:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17204279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotManTheLessButNatureMore/pseuds/NotManTheLessButNatureMore
Summary: Title inspired by the poem of the same name by Denise Levertov;“I hold my hand open for him to go. Each minute the last minute.”





	Living

“I hold my hand open for him to go.

Each minute the last minute.”

\- Denise Levertov, Living

 

***********************************

 

Robin had fallen asleep on the couch sometime after 2am. That was the last time she remembered checking her watch and calling his phone yet again. She woke with a start, the blanket falling to the floor and her mug, balanced precariously beside her, almost meeting a shattering end. It was 4am and upon seeing this she gave herself permission to finally call Shanker. No matter how long they might have stood outside the pub after closing, smoking and chatting, Strike should have been home by now.

 

“Robin?” Came the muffled and slightly slurred response. Robin’s stomach churned when she heard the sleepiness in Shanker’s voice.

 

“Hi Shanker, um, is Strike with you? He hasn’t-“

 

“Bunsen? No, I left ‘im hours ago.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Ev’rythin’ alrigh’?”

 

“It’s just… well, he hasn’t come home.” As Robin said the words she got up and checked their bedroom in case for some reason he’d gone straight to bed without waking her. Their bed was empty.

 

“You sure?” Shanker sounded more awake now and Robin could feel her pulse quicken. Her mind started to run through all the possible reasons for Strike’s absence and every one of them seemed to be inspired by London’s recently released crime figures.

 

“He’s not here. Where did you leave him? Did you get the tube with him?”

 

“No, I left ‘im at the pub.”

 

“Well it will have been shut for hours now, he can’t still be there.”

 

“Calm down Robin, ‘e probably just… ran into someone ‘e knows.” Shanker’s pause in search of a plausible explanation didn’t do anything to decrease Robin’s panic.

 

“Who? And why would he stay out this late? He knows I’d be waiting up for him.”

 

“Look Bunsen’s probably just…” Shanker’s voice trailed off.

 

“What?”

 

“‘e was a bit… I might ‘ave an idea. Gimme ‘alf an hour and I’ll ring you b-“

 

“No, I’m coming with you. Where do you think he is?” Robin said as she walked back into their bedroom, swapping her pyjama bottoms for jeans and pulling a jumper over her pyjama top.

 

“Just a hunch, ‘at’s all. Robin, it’s late, you-“

 

“Where will I meet you?”

 

“The tube’s finished for the-“

 

“Where Shanker?” Robin shouted down the phone in frustration.

 

“Christ, alrigh’ keep your ‘air on. Get a taxi to Whitechapel cemetery. Get ‘im to drop you at the community centre on Southern Grove, I’ll waIt for you there.”

 

“Whitechapel cemetery?” Robin said but Shanker had already hung up.

 

\----------------------------------

 

It was freezing cold and Robin regretted not grabbing her hat and gloves on the way out the door. After a silent ride across London, thankfully a quick one as well due to the hour of the night, Robin caught sight of Shanker hovering outside a darkly tiled building. She quickly paid the cabbie and climbed out.

 

“Alrigh’ Robin.” Shanker’s smile was forced but his gold tooth caught the light from the streetlamp.

 

Robin turned and looked across the road to the cemetery. There was a sign, complete with a small map, welcoming you to Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park but the cemetery itself was fortified by a tall stone wall and an iron gate. Robin was beginning to question Shanker’s detective skills when he, as if hearing her internal monologue, voiced his rationale.

 

“He’s in there alrigh’. I should have known, ‘e was acting funny all nigh’.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Well we came ‘ere and ‘e left flowers, we ‘ad the usual can or two and then moved off to the pub. Too cold to stay any longer but after a few drinks he kept saying about coming back. Kept talking about days and years and bollox, I just thought ‘e was pissed.” Shanker explained as they crossed the street and Robin peered through the gate.

 

“Don’t worry, no one cares about people breakin’ into into this place.” Shanker said with a suspicious glint in his eye as started to climb the gate.

 

Robin followed his lead, thankful that the gate was designed in such a way as to make it easy to climb. The graveyard that had declared itself a park bore little resemblance to any parks in London Robin had frequented. Unless you classed pebbly narrow paths interspersed with overgrown graves as green areas. Shanker set off past the fist set of graves and headed deeper into the dark abyss. Robin cursed Strike for being the reason she was walking around a freezing cold graveyard at close to 5am, and then her chest tightened at the thought of him sitting with nothing but his thoughts and the dead for company all night.

 

“There ‘e is.” Shanker announced softly.

 

Strike was sitting hunched over, hands stuffed under his armpits for warmth, staring across from his mother’s grave. A flat tombstone was serving as a bench for him and the ground at his feet was littered with beer cans, some full but more empty. Robin’s eyes were drawn to the headstone in his gaze. It was impressive and completely out of place amongst the other graves. Robin wondered briefly if that was a true reflection of his mother.

 

“Bunsen?” Shanker said, not quite shouting but loud enough for Strike to suddenly twist towards them and knock the can of beer beside him to the ground. Robin watched him reach down and fumble with it before giving up and kicking it a foot or so away.

 

“Cormoran?” Robin walked forward and felt Shanker follow closely.

 

“Wha’re you doing ‘ere?” Strike said, his eyes drawn back to the stone guitar in front of him. His voice was hoarse, as though he had just woken in bed after a night of silence. He pulled another beer can from the grass, opened it and took a swig.

 

“Us? What’re you doing ‘ere you daft bugger?” Shanker said as he walked across and stood between Strike and Leda’s grave.

 

“I jus’…” Strike’s voice trailed off as his eyes glazed over and he took another drink of his beer. Robin noticed his eyes were watery and wondered how much was due to the freezing temperature.

 

“Just wha’? You’ve dragged Robin ‘ere out of ‘er bed in the middle of the night. Not to mention I was ‘aving a lovely dream about that dark haired one that lives-“

 

“Shanker!” Robin rolled her eyes at him and sat beside Strike. She felt the cold of the tombstone seep into her almost instantly.

 

“Cormoran?” She said softly, leaning slightly to her left to close the distance between them. His head was hanging low and she saw him eye her sideways before letting out a slow breath.

 

“I jus’ wanted to come.”

 

“Most people do that during the day.” Robin whispered.

 

He didn’t respond, instead his gaze travelled back to the headstone in front of them and Robin found herself reading the name automatically. Strike dropped his head again and Robin thought she heard him sniff.

 

“She’s been gone over half my life.” Strike said quietly.

 

Shanker looked at Robin and then at the ground.

 

“And I didn’t realise. She’s been a corpse longer than she’s been a mum.” Robin thought she heard his voice falter at the last word but he covered it with a cough and shifted in his seat.

 

“Bunsen.” Shanker whispered, and then looked past both Robin and Strike and shuffled his feet.

 

“Cormoran.” Robin said gently as she placed her hand over the fist he had curled on his right thigh. It felt like a block of ice.

 

“Last day of August. I added it up. How long I had ‘er and how long...” Strike’s voice trailed off and he straightened his shoulders.

 

“August 31st.” Shanker said quietly and Robin saw the softness in his face.

 

“It just hit me, how long it’s been since… how long it’ll be…” The years will just keep piling up, Strike thought.

 

Robin opened her mouth but the words faltered. She couldn’t imagine it being years since she heard her mother’s voice or felt her arms around her. She couldn’t imagine spending half her life without her, or more.

 

“She’s missed a lot.” Shanker said as he sat down on Strike’s other side and grabbed a can from the ground.

 

“Yeah.” Strike said, swallowing the lump in his throat.

 

“Lucy’s wedding.” Shanker said.

 

“Greg’s best man punching you for nicking his wallet.” Strike huffed.

 

“I thought we agreed not to talk abou’ that?”

 

“Shanker actually got caught stealing? I’m disappointed.” Robin teased.

 

“Alrigh’, alrigh’. It was before I perfected me technique.”

 

“Lucy’s kids being born.” Strike said quietly.

 

“She’d have hated being called a granny.” Shanker stated, causing Robin to smile.

 

“Your leg.” Shanker said.

 

“My leg.” Strike agreed. He didn’t voice the fact that he’d probably still have both legs if Leda hadn’t died.

 

“‘member how proud she was when you got all ‘at money so you could swan off to Oxford and eat Aristotle food in a three piece suit every day?” Robin smiled at Shanker’s vision of Oxford dining.

 

Strike huffed an agreement and Shanker knocked his can against Strike’s, hoping he hadn’t steered the conversation back down dark territory. He knew Strike carried a certain amount of guilt for leaving his mother alone, save for Shanker, with the man who killed her.

 

Robin watched Strike’s eyes run the length of the stone guitar as Shanker looked across at her and back to Strike.

 

“‘You did such a good job.’ That‘s what she said when I got the acceptance letter. She’d always say that. Didn’t matter if I won a race at sports day or got into college, she’d hug me and whisper it into my ear, ‘you did such a good job’.” Strike shut his eyes as he whispered the last part himself.

 

Robin’s hand automatically went to Strike’s back and she kept it pressed warmly against his shoulder. She felt Shanker’s gaze on her, his eyes peering at her over the top of Strike’s slumped head.

 

“She’d ‘ave loved Robin.”

 

After a long moment of silence, only interrupted by the omnipresent sound of sirens echoing across the city, Shanker stood and kicked the toe of his boot against Strike’s remaining foot.

 

“Come on Bunsen, I’ve got me beauty sleep to catch up on.”

 

Strike stood stiffly and gingerly started to limp off in the opposite direction to the way Robin and Shanker had come. Robin stood from where she had crouched to gather the empty beer cans.

 

“Cormoran?” She said and pointed towards the black iron gate. His brow furrowed and Robin saw the amount of alcohol he had drank written across his face.

 

“That’s locked. I used the pedestrian one by the rose bushes, lock’s never on properly.” He said, stumbling over the word ‘pedestrian’.

 

“What?” Shanker exclaimed.

 

Strike turned back around completely and looked between the two of them with a confused expression.

 

“Did you hop the gate?”

 

“No.”

 

“No.”

 

A warm if minuscule smile parted Strike’s lips. He shook his head and set off down the path towards the rose bushes, their empty and dormant branches casting an eerie shadow across the ground. He felt Robin and Shanker’s presence move closer behind him and as he arrived at the narrow pedestrian gate he led them through and turned in a sort of half stumble to shut the gate and jimmy the lock back into place. He looked down the path once more as the moonlight broke briefly through the wind-parted trees and noticed, at knee level, a small half opened rosebud.

**Author's Note:**

> No idea how close or far off my timeline is regarding Leda’s death (I can’t remember if we ever got specific dates for her death) but I figured that Strike was around 20 when she died because I seem to remember him dropping out of college in his second year. So that would put him around 40 here, closer to the present time than the books so lots of time also for Strike and Robin to have moved in together. ;)
> 
> Thanks as always for kudos/comments, this is a wonderfully encouraging and supportive little fandom. :)


End file.
